October 8, 2009

This Tuesday, mere hours after the next Big Quiz Thing concludes, I'm going on vacation. A real vacation—not this "take a three-day weekend and get on a 7:30am bus to Boston" bullshit. Heavens no: I'm going to the airport, putting my shoes through the X-ray, getting on an airplane, and sitting on a beach for five solid days. Perhaps drinking something out of a glass equipped with a small novelty umbrella, who knows.

I'm going to Puerto Rico, with my little quizette. Puerto Rico: It's sunny, it's warm, it's not that far away, and we got a good deal. Also, we can zip-line through the rain forest, which will fulfill some kind of preteen fantasy of mine. But that's about it as far as reasoning goes. And that's all we need.

I don't know all that much about Puerto Rico. As with most subjects, I know only the trivial and mundane. For example…

-- It's the ancestral home of the Latino characters in West Side Story (which, by the way, is worth seeing in its current Broadway run; the Spanish content gets in the way only during "I Feel Pretty," and not even that much). The preamble to "America" tells you a lot about the island: Rosalia offers the point—"lovely island, island of tropical breezes," etc. Anita, of course, has the counterpoint—"ugly island, island of tropic diseases." She likes the isle of Manhattan, you see; smoke on your pipe and put that in. I like the isle of Manhattan too, and Karen Olivo absolutely kicks ass in the current production. But I'm trusting Rosalia for next week. Watch this; the magic of the stage…

-- In 1950, a couple of Puerto Rican independent radicals attempted to assassinate President Truman, managing to kill a White House security agent. Kind of intense stuff; read more here, and gaze at this, the menacing-looking flag of the Puerto Rican Nationalist party of the time:-- In a sequel to the 50 State Quarter Program, the mint issued a quarter for Puerto Rican quarter this past March. It was released alongside coins for D.C., Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and your favorite, the Northern Mariana Islands. Should've gone there, perhaps.

-- Menudo was from Puerto Rico (the boy band; the soup is from Mexico). They were monstrously huge for a time in the early '80s, and were famous for booting out any member who either (a) turned 16 or (b) got a girlfriend, which sounds creepier to my adult mind than it did to my childhood one. Ricky Martin was a member for a while, they made a guest appearance on Silver Spoons, and they bought a private plane that had been owned by Richard Nixon. Also, in the fall of 1983, they starred in a series of mind-bogglingly cheesy music videos shown between Saturday morning cartoons on ABC. Check their ode to a shopping mall; I've had that "Menudo on ABC" theme song stuck in my head for more than a quarter century:

-- Despite what some think, Puerto Rico is in the United States, it just isn't itself a state; it's a commonwealth. Their voting power and representation in Congress is very limited, and I have no idea how this constitutes anything resembling fairness (it probably doesn't). I'm not sure what's holding them back from becoming the 51st star; as a fan of American geographical trivia, I'd love another state to play around with, and I can't imagine that Puerto Rico would be any greater drag on the USA than some of those pointless existing states, like Alaska or South Carolina. But apparently, the Puerto Ricans themselves are split on the issue: Some do want to become a state, some want full independence, some like things as is. (When she was scrounging for primary votes last year, Hillary Clinton apparently made an ill-advised promise to the Puerto Ricans that if elected President, she'd work toward PR statehood. She trounced Obama in the primary, for all the good it did her.) As with everywhere I go, there's so much to learn while on my vacation…

Meet Quizmaster Noah Tarnow…

Noah Tarnow is the creator and senior quizmaster of The Big Quiz Thing, America's premier live trivia game show for corporate and private events. Combining supremely original quiz content with top-shelf stage production, the Big Quiz Thing takes live trivia entertainment to the next level. Email booking[at]bigquizthing.com for a personal consultation.